


a star you only saw the traces of

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Background Bellamort, Background Het, F/F, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Interrogation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: Amelia Bones, appointed Director of MLE after Crouch's breakdown, is faced with the responsibility of getting incriminating evidence out of Bellatrix Lestrange when she's arrested a few months after fleeing Britain. Their past relationship looms large in the interrogation room.
Relationships: Amelia Bones/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	a star you only saw the traces of

**Author's Note:**

> This stands alone, but if you'd like more about Amelia and Bellatrix's relationship as teenagers you may want to read [if you can't love me honey go on just pretend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628231). I wrote this a year ago and never got around to cleaning it up, but I'm editing and posting today to celebrate my birthday!
> 
> Fic warnings: background spousal abuse (not Bellatrix or Amelia), lying liars who lie, serious emotional manipulation on both sides, questionable interrogation ethics.
> 
> Title from "Absinthe" by Beth Orton: _My love's a star you only saw the traces of./What went before is not no more/it's the embers of._

Amelia went out to muggle London to eat and tried not to think about the afternoon. If she'd gone for lunch in the magical world, everyone would have been talking about the arrests. She wanted a break from thinking about it.

She knew it had to be her, although... It might be said that she should recuse herself. Then, no one was likely to know why, since only one person had ever found out about her and Bellatrix back in school. Explaining might provoke awkward questions. If there was anyone who'd do better or even as good a job interrogating the Lestranges she'd hand it over gladly, but there wasn't. 

For a moment, Amelia wished intently that they had been arrested before Crouch's son vanished and he had his breakdown - let this be his problem, not hers - but then she swept the thought away. Crouch was uncreative with a brutal temper. He thought Cruciatus was a good way to get real information in interrogation. If Crouch went up against Bellatrix he'd break like a wave crashing over her rocky temperament. It would be cruelty to them both and pointless besides. He'd never get a drop out of her if she didn't want to give it, only ruin what was left of his soul pushing himself on to worse deeds in the attempt.

Amelia got up when she realized she had been staring into her cup for a good five minutes without taking a drink. Anticipation built emotion - Bella had told her that, actually, long ago - and she was only making it worse.

Impulsively she stopped on her way back and bought a pack of Gauloises.

When Amelia went into the interrogation room, she sat down and handed them across the table to Bellatrix. There were two dementors behind her - Merlin, Amelia hated them, but they were undeniably a necessity to hold Bellatrix anywhere she didn't want to be - and two Aurors behind Amelia. She heard the younger one shifting at her right.

Bellatrix looked blankly at her, and her pale eyes were for a moment as empty as a mirror, a crystal ball filled with fog. Then a light seemed to turn on behind them and she laughed, head back, as easily as if they were at school before the war, before any of this. 

"You remembered!" she said, and took one out. Amelia had planned to offer to light it, but Bella did it herself, wandless and wordless and escorted by two dementors. Amelia heard the Auror at her left swear softly.

"I remembered," Amelia said, and looked at Bellatrix for a moment.

Bellatrix wasn't looking at her. She exhaled, eyes closing, and sighed the smoke out as though she was quite alone. Bella had the trick of acting as though no one was watching. That was half of what was so charismatic about her; she drew you in and made you feel you were alone with her.

Magical Law Enforcement was now fairly certain that she and her husband and brother-in-law had killed the Longbottoms, the Scrimgeours, and two lone Aurors after the fall of Voldemort. 

Proving any of that would be a bitter thing. They were all three of them marked, but they'd been on the run in Europe for months before being picked up and there was no going back so far with the Reversal Spell on a wand. None of them were likely to confess and their Occlumency shields were impeccable. The initial warrant for the arrest of the men had been based on circumstantial evidence, and running was suspicious, but it wasn't conviction material. There were no witnesses - no survivors - to give evidence of their murders.

Merlin and Christ, Amelia wished this had been Crouch's problem. Crouch would've thrown them all in prison and not bothered about a trial. Amelia had the brains to understand why that was a bad idea; right now she wished she didn't.

Taking the mark carried a sentence of ten years in and of itself if it was done freely. Bellatrix would get off easily if she told the Wizengamot her husband had forced her. The others would be in close contact with their former comrades, gathering grudges for ten years before being unleashed again.

Bellatrix seemed content to finish the cigarette in silence. She hadn't even opened her eyes. Amelia tried to gather her thoughts to a starting place.

"We can still work something out, if you're willing to make a deal," she said.

Bellatrix kept her eyes closed. When she took the cigarette from her mouth, Amelia half expected the same ring of dark red lipstick as when they had met in London over the summer before Amelia's seventh year; but of course Bellatrix wasn't wearing makeup right now, not in jail. "To save myself at the expense of my husband and his brother? Even if I was guilty, you know I wouldn't do that, Amelia."

It wasn't her husband and brother-in-law she'd never denounce; it was the Dark Lord. But she wasn't so fool as to say it in in front of witnesses when she wasn't yet convicted.

"To save yourself, no," Amelia said. "The file, please, Macmillan?"

He gave it to her immediately. Neither Auror knew what was in it. Bellatrix was too professional to react much to its appearance; she only took another drag off the cigarette and watched Amelia, lips quirking slightly. 

"I understand that this year must have been difficult for you," Bellatrix said, as Amelia set the file down. "I know the Longbottoms were friends of yours... I couldn't possibly blame you for jumping at shadows. My condolences."

Amelia wouldn't mistreat a prisoner, but she allowed herself a quick fantasy of grabbing Bellatrix by her long black hair and slamming her face into the desk a few times.

That would be unimaginably stupid. It was exactly what Bellatrix would _want_ her to do; lose her temper, do something that would gain her sympathy from the Wizengamot, stop thinking. Bellatrix would never be moved by pain.

They didn't have much on the Lestranges, but she didn't think Bellatrix could possibly be sure of that. She'd been out of the country for months. She wouldn't have heard from the spies Amelia knew, with a grating certainty, were still in even _her_ department. 

"Your sister," she said. "Narcissa Black Malfoy."

"If you expect me to believe you've evidence against _Cissy_ of all people--" Bellatrix laughed, gesturing with the cigarette. "Cissy _sews_ , Amelia. She hosts dinner parties with four forks per setting. She's no Death Eater."

Was there something a hair wilder in that laugh this time, verging on hysterical? Amelia hoped so, but she knew she might have been imagining it.

"On the contrary," she said, "We've no evidence against Narcissa at all. Two weeks ago she was admitted to St. Mungo's." She flipped the file open and pretended to read it, to check, as though she needed to check. "A broken leg, sprained wrist, two broken ribs and a punctured long and a concussion. The Healers seem to think she was thrown down the stairs." 

She paused, glanced at Bellatrix; and yes, her carefree mask had frozen in place, not yet dropping. Purebloods were all taught to posture young, and Bellatrix had taken to those lessons better than Amelia ever could have.

"I'm sorry to spring this on you in this way," Amelia said, and unlike Bellatrix she meant it. "It must be difficult to hear."

Bellatrix swallowed, face going blank as a wall; blank as the darkness under a dementor's hood. "Go on," she said, and her voice was ugly.

"Of course the main suspect is her husband, particularly since she was injured at home, but there's not much that we can do without testimony to that effect. The hospital filled out a report--" She flicked it over to let Bellatrix read it. "--But she wouldn't sign it or press charges. Insisted she'd tripped over a kneazle belonging to their groundskeeper and fallen down the steps. As you can see, the Healers didn't feel that was quite commensurate with her injuries."

"You're - what? Telling me you won't help Narcissa until I give you information I don't even have?" Bellatrix lifted her head.

"I can't help Narcissa unless she lets me, Bellatrix," Amelia said, gently. Bellatrix knew cruelty well, had taken it as a lover and confidante years ago. It was kindness she didn't know how to handle, never having experienced much.

If Amelia had been older when they were separated... Well, they had both been children then; and the last time they'd met, halfway through the war, Amelia had been consumed by grief instead. She would never know what might have been, now.

"She refused to identify her attacker and left hospital against medical advice. I can offer her a chance to visit you in holding if you want to try to persuade her, and I imagine she'll take it, but I doubt she'll listen when you tell her to leave. I don't think she would trust me with the truth under the circumstances. I'm sure if you were in the country she would have gone to you," she added, knowing full well that Lucius Malfoy would never have _dared_ mistreat his wife if her terrifying older sister was available to help.

"I'm sure." Bellatrix laughed hoarsely. "If Crouch hadn't gotten that fucking warrant--"

She was already slipping. Previously all three had claimed in coordination that they'd left just before the warrant because of urgent family business in France with the Lestranges' relatives, and had had no knowledge they were wanted for questioning in Britain.

Amelia felt grim satisfaction and guilt together. 

"Help yourself," she said softly. "And help Cissy. We can work something out, Bellatrix. I'll let you think about it." She rose. "Take her back to her cell, please."

The thing was, Amelia wasn't an idiot.

She knew perfectly well that Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were both supporters of Voldemort. Lucius was certainly a Death Eater and Narcissa probably was as well. It was quite possible that Lucius's extensive political ties were precisely the hold he had on Narcissa: he'd kept himself and his wife out of prison when the aging relations left of Narcissa's birth family might well have scorned her for taking down the boys of the family with her and her sister's cause.

Amelia also knew perfectly well that the Lestranges had been searching for Voldemort to bring him back. The Longbottoms' work notes had been stripped from the house, and the enchantments placed on it to protect their infant - who might have been prophesied, if it had not in the end been James Potter's son - had been carefully rearranged in the process of examination. Both of the lone dead Aurors had been members of the Order of the Phoenix. The Scrimgeours had work notes on the Aurors' protective magic. 

If they were released, now or in ten years, they would just go back to searching. No paltry handful of names, plans, whatever Bellatrix would give up as an acceptable loss, would be worth that. 

Amelia had been called brilliant, had achieved heights pureblood girls - bred ornaments - were not supposed to think of. But she knew - had known from when they were first together in school, Bellatrix a year younger and failing half her classes - that she was nothing, _nothing_ compared to Bellatrix Black.

If Voldemort was out there, waiting to be found, Bellatrix would find him and bring him back to power. And Amelia thought - and Dumbledore agreed - that Voldemort was out there.

Realistically Amelia wasn't looking at a conviction for Bellatrix, not without witness or victim testimony. She had to get something that would salvage that, before the month they could hold prisoners before trial was up. 

Bellatrix knew she wasn't an idiot, and Bellatrix _was_ brilliant, and Bellatrix also knew about the month's limit. Bellatrix would know Amelia was weighing any testimony against what she would do when free, scrutinizing it for what could possibly be worth that risk; planning for what to do if she gave nothing. Amelia had lost her whole family to the war. If the month was up, and she had to choose between releasing Bellatrix to bring Voldemort back, and arranging for some illegal alternative... She didn't honestly know what she would do.

Bellatrix had truly _cared_ about two things in her life: Voldemort, and the younger children of her House. Of those four children, one was dead, one in Azkaban for life, one estranged permanently, and one married to Lucius Malfoy who threw her down the stairs, and Merlin knew what else. Every time before, when forced into a place she might have to choose between those priorities, Bellatrix had picked both and tried to balance it.

She'd try to do that again, try to trick Amelia into letting her go with scraps and lies. Amelia could only hope she could force Bellatrix to really choose, and that Bellatrix was brilliant enough to come up with real proof, real answers that would be worth the price. 

Right now, Amelia hadn't a damn clue what to ask for in the first place. She didn't know if the proof she sought existed.

It took three weeks, two visits from Narcissa, and eighteen from Amelia to crack Bellatrix.

Amelia could see something had changed when she entered the interrogation room. Bellatrix was neither poised and laughing, nor blank and empty. She seemed nervous, was biting her nails. She shifted her weight as Amelia sat down and passed the cigarettes over the table.

"Thank Morgana, I'm dying for one," Bellatrix muttered, lighting it wandlessly again. 

After three weeks surrounded by dementors day and night, her magic should be weakening. Amelia saw no sign of it.

"I've brought you a pack every day," Amelia said. "You must be a chain-smoker these days if that's too little."

"Last year I was going through three or four," Bellatrix said, not really looking at her. Amelia assumed the nerves were a show put on for her, but it was a thoughtful touch. She wondered if Frank and Alice had had time to be scared. Their infant son had been left alive and unharmed in his cradle. Amelia would have liked to think that some vestige of pity had motivated it, but more probably it was the memory of what had happened at the Potters'.

"You have something for me, Bellatrix?" Amelia said.

"May I have parchment?" Bellatrix said, looking up slowly. Her eyes were naked, vulnerable, for the first time. Amelia had seen Bellatrix practice that look at sixteen, joking about preparation for her wedding night.

Amelia gestured, and parchment and quill were swiftly handed over.

Slowly, Bellatrix began to write. Reading upside down, Amelia saw a list of names. Some she expected - Lucius Malfoy, Tristan Nott - but others... Was that _Amycus Carrow?_ The Carrows had never fallen under suspicion. And they had no evidence on Utto Rosier except the timing of his son's death... And other names, more startling still.

Bellatrix kept writing, filled the sheet and turned it over. Half the Wizengamot, Amelia thought faintly. Was that her strategy? Drown them with useless information?

"You understand," Bellatrix said, blotting the list, "I can't give definitive evidence against most of these people. Some might be quite innocent..."

"But?" Amelia prompted dryly.

"But they're names I heard of or saw on his desk - or that he visited often. Or visited him." Bellatrix licked her lips, looked up at Amelia. She was still so pretty, even under three weeks of strain in jail; the pale gray eyes and the thick, black lashes contrasting. The urge to slam Bellatrix's face into something and perhaps break her nose returned. "I wasn't - privy to his plans, I was only - only his mistress..."

It was a nice face saving gesture for them both, really, assuming she gave good information. It wasn't actually illegal to have had sexual relations with Voldemort.

"And who are we speaking of?" Amelia asked, for the benefit of the record.

She expected 'the Dark Lord,' that would have been enough, but Bellatrix swallowed and said, "Voldemort," paused and added, "Tom Riddle."

" _What?_ " Amelia said.

"His birth name," Bellatrix said uncomfortably. "Tom Marvolo Riddle - is that new? I can give you his birth date and such, but you should be able to find them anyway, he was in legal record." Bellatrix tapped the quill against the nails of her opposite hand, a nervous gesture Amelia recognized from her time as an O.W.L. student; it might even be authentic, as opposed to the nail biting. "You know men will often say very... private... things to women they're sleeping with..."

Amelia had spoken to those with suspicions, but given the reaction no one had been brave enough to identify Lord Voldemort as Tom Riddle, muggle-raised orphan, on the record. Bellatrix saying so - saying he'd _told_ her so - might be more valuable than all of those names together.

Dear sweet Christ and all the gods and demons of Merlin, Amelia believed her about the names now.

"We'll be able to get a warrant with these," she said. "What happens with you depends on what we find."

"About that." Bellatrix wrote a phrase in Latin underneath the list. "This should help, it's a pass code. Do it in writing, use an anonymous dicta-quill, most will answer if only to tell you they're done risking themselves. I'd say it's a tip or something, mind, not that he's returned."

"Thank you," Amelia said, mouth dry, and took the paper. "You maintain your innocence despite the mark?"

"The spell..." Bellatrix flipped her wrist over, drew back the sleeve of her robes to show the mark. "It's based off a slave brand, developed by Romans. The version used for, ah, concubines. It doesn't mark the face, but if you cut off the skin it regrows. Cut off a limb and I believe it would jump. I... Not everyone who took it killed, it was just a mark of ownership. And my husband - well. You know about his father... He's done nothing but receive the claim of a madman and friend of his father when he was a _child._ "

Amelia blew out her breath. She very much doubted that. "We'll see about the names," she said. She left cheerfully thinking of the fury of the remnants of the Wizengamot once they saw her memory; once they saw Bellatrix name the one who'd tormented them for years as a halfblood, muggle-raised orphan.

Almost two years later, Bellatrix sat down on a tree stump in the mountains of Albania. She brushed hair back from her face, towards the braid it had escaped from. She'd abandoned trailing robes for the hike in favor of what was basically underwear, trousers and light shirt.

The mist gathered around her. It had a face; a face she knew well.

Bellatrix pulled a long drink from her water bottle before speaking. She said, "You're going to be rather furious with me, but have some restraint, if you will. You hate politics."

**Author's Note:**

> Liked this? [Find it](https://slashmarks.tumblr.com/post/631711548682928128/a-star-you-only-saw-the-traces-of), and me, on tumblr!


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